Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]

Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.

11-0757

05/04

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eleven

AN ACT revising the child support guidelines based on an income shares model of calculating child support.

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:

1 Statement of Intent. The general court finds that child support policy in New Hampshire is based on the principle that both parents should share responsibility for the economic support of their children. The general court further finds that the income shares model, which presumes that a child should receive the same proportion of parental income that the child would have received if the parents lived together, is a more appropriate model on which to base the state’s child support formula and guidelines. This legislation is intended to implement the recommendations of the 2009 New Hampshire Child Support Guidelines Review and Recommendations that the state child support guidelines and child support formula be revised to reflect recent estimates of expenditures on child-rearing and to produce results consistent with the income shares philosophy for calculating child support.

III. The percentage of net income paid for child support should vary according to the number of children and[, with limited exemptions, not] according to income level.

3 Child Support Guidelines; Calculation of Child Support. RSA 458-C:3, I is repealed and reenacted to read as follows:

I.(a) The child support guidelines shall be based on the following:

Percent of Combined Net Income Devoted to Child Support

Net income 1 Child 2 Children 3 or more Children

$15,000 or less 26 percent 38 percent 45 percent

$25,000 25 37 44

$35,000 23 34 41

$50,000 21 30 36

$60,000 19 28 33

$70,000 18 27 32

$80,000 17 25 30

$90,000 17 24 29

$100,000 15 22 26

$125,000 or more 13 19 22

(b) The department of health and human services shall calculate and publish a schedule of child support amounts using the table in subparagraph (a). The schedule shall provide child support amounts in $1000 increments of combined net income, with a directly proportional change in the percentage of combined net income devoted to child support based on income level and number of children. The department shall determine the fractional percentage between each income level by interpolating between the percentages within each column of the table under subparagraph (a). Nothing in this paragraph shall preclude the department from publishing child support guidelines in increments of less than $1000, based on the schedule and formula provided in this section.

4 Child Support Formula. Amend RSA 458-C:3, III to read as follows:

III. The number of children in the same household for which child support is paid is [the] a determining factor in the percentage applied against net income.